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17 September 2012

The tablet market is still growing amidst the already crowded competition. Apart from the renowned tablets like the Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab, BlackBerry Playbook, Amazon Kindle and several others, more and more manufacturers and brands are still trying to come up with their own version of a tablet.

From being the number one toy retailer to a tablet maker, Toys ‘R’ Us has gone a step further and recently announced that it will sell a 7-inch Android-based tablet called Tabeo for $149.99. Directly converting that to Philippine peso, that would be around Php6,500 – definitely an attractive price.

While other tablets are positioned to serve businessmen and yuppies, Tabeo is aimed at kids.Perhaps they thought, “since parents are using tablets to educate their children anyway, why not come up with one that is specifically for the kids?” And so they did.

As such, this tablet has a child-friendly interface and a defined set of parental controls to block inappropriate content to surf the web safely. We have no further details yet as to how it will work, but it is interesting to know if the kids won’t be intelligent enough to be able to trick those controls.

Upon purchase, Tabeo will come with 50 free pre-installed apps – a combination of books, games and educational apps – that were carefully selected to entertain and educate children. Apart from that, all other apps can be freely downloaded from the Tabeo Store, which has approximately 6,000 apps, as per the company.

Tabeo features a capacitive multi-touch screen running on a 1.0 Ghz processor, which definitely makes navigation and use fast and fun. It will offer a 4 GB storage only, but is expandable via micro SDHC slot of up to 32 GB. Other features of the tablet include a front-facing camera to capture and share special moments and an HDMI output to enjoy photos, videos, and more on the television.

Unlike the other tablets, the Tabeo can provide a full internet experience since it is capable of supporting Flash. It can be connected to the Internet using a Wi-Fi connection.

Reported by various online journal, Tabeois said to hit the stores on October 21, but will begin shipping starting October 1. Pre-orders for the kids tablet on the international Toys ‘R’ Us website has already started as you read this article.

As the holiday season comes nearer, Toys ‘R’Us hopes that the Tabeo kids tablet will be a good reason for parents to visit its stores to satisfy their kids’ craving for a tablet device. “It is our strategic position to offer products that you can’t find anywhere [else] or be compared on price,” Troy Peterson, a vice president at Toys “R” Us, told The Wall Street Journal.